Construction is truly gaining momentum and literally continues to reach the sky every day. Recently Sadbhuja Das wanted to see how the structure looked from his roof in the grhasta park, so he took his trusty camera to the top and captured this remarkable shot! At this height we can see Srila Prabhupada's Samadhi alongside the ToVP. It may look like the Samadhi is grander but it only appears this way because it is closer to Sadbhuja’s home. The levels of the temple that are visible are the second and third museum floor; after this comes the service floor and then the dome starts.

When faced with financial challenges, we often worry, “What do I live with?” When the bottom line doesn’t look good for ourlifestyle, that situation may be the impetus required for us to look at the top line of our life: “What do I live for?”

The eleventh canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam describes the story of such a priority reformation, wherein a wealthy super-miser lost everything and everyone due to a series of disasters. While trying to make sense out of the loss of the ultimate means for living, he discovered the ultimate purpose for living: developing an eternal relationship with the Supreme Lord. Being enriched with this sense of purpose, he cast off the feelings of being impoverished – and went on to attain life’s ultimate fulfillment and success.

His experience of enrichment-in-impoverishment demonstrates the assurance of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita (9.22): when we take care of the whys of life, the Lord takes care of the hows of life.

I'm sure you've experienced it like I have; that short and brief moment when you think you're being followed.

It's nighttime and you're walking on the street (like I was tonight on a Burnaby sidewalk). It's dark and you are coming towards a street light with its rays casting a shadow; actually, your shadow. It looks and feels like this tall and growing person is behind you and approaching you. He's bigger than you, he may attack you and kill you. In a flash fear hormones explode. You turn your head towards him, nothing's there. You are relieved that it's your shadow. You now feel safe.

Safety is a big factor in people's lives. I had picked up a free Metro paper from a news stand. Once I got to my guest quarters, I browsed through, flipping the pages. You get the usual sensational hype, and much of it instills fear and mistrust in each other.

Some attention grabbing headlines for an ordinary day. Former junior hockey coach pleads guilty to sex abuse. Body Found in Burnaby Identified. Man In A Wheelchair Attacked. Remains of Diver Found 26 Years Later. Some articles are not at all bad, though the subject is chilling. For instance, the one about China police cracking down on child trafficking rings. Apparently tens of thousands of children each year in China. Although, a positive article, it still addresses the unsafe situation for women and children especially. Indeed, we live in a world full of fear, safety is a big issue. So you wonder sometimes. I may be walking and chanting but there's still a chance of becoming victimized. Guardian angel, God, or Krishna, are well wishers and protectors... Still there are surprises in this world. Nothing is totally physically secure, until we shed the body for a permanent one.

His disappearance day is on December 14. It is very difficult to understand a pure Vaishnava and understand his actions. It is not possible to understand the greatness and activities of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaj. However, we can scrutinizingly study his words and instructions and at best try to follow without speculation. Maharaj was a stalwart preacher without an ounce of compromise. He chastised any semblance or shade of untruth. In other words, anything or any philosophy or theory that is impersonal or based on fruitive grounds or demigod worship, he was against it in totality.

He ferociously denounced so called followers of dharma who propounded the concept of yata mata tata patha - meaning - all are approaching the absolute in diverse ways. The Ramakrishna mission is one such mission that propounds such nonsense philosophy. In my opinion, it has deluded the entire vedic dharma into a hodgepodge pathway with no sense of direction or loyalty. This sort of dilution of pure Bhagavat dharma is the cancer of "Hindu" society. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaj was against such dilution. This sort of watering down or melting of different paths as one he called "cit-jada-samanvaya-vaada - trying to fuse material with spiritual".

Maharaj considered his responsibility as a sadhu was to slash others' misconstructions. According to him, a true sadhu is one who should cut through the wicked propensities of every individual without duplicity. A sadhu should not preach anything less than suddha-bhakti to Lord Krishna. Any dharma less than pure Vaishnava dharma is simply useless waste of time. A sadhu who does not present suddha-bhakti to Krishna but instead presents a watered down version just so he is socially acceptable by the masses is a hypocrite and cheater. He believes that such self-serving sadhus exist for fear of self retribution- in other words, refraining from pointing out others' misdoings for fear that oneself become subject to assessment. Indeed, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Takur believed that true humility as propounded by Sri Krishna Chaitanya is to uphold the truth and not desert the cause of the truth.

Below are his actual words

The aggressive pronouncement of the concrete truth is the crying necessity of the moment, for silencing the aggressive propaganda of specific untruths that is being spread all over the world. Without cheating anyone, we should boldly proclaim the truth to everyone. Even if the truth is unpopular, if it bestows genuine auspiciousness on the living entities we must speak it. Unless we fearlessly speak the truth, Sri Sri Guru-Gauranga will not pleased. The more determined one is in devotional service, the bolder and more courageous he will be as a preacher.

For those who are happy to be passive and accept all paths as a valid path to Godhead and happy to not fight on behalf of the truth, such passiveness is actually duplicity. By saying all paths are equally valid so everyone will be satisfied and there will be no mutual bad feelings, such an individual is considered a cheater and hypocrite. Below are his words on such false equalities.

How can sat and asat, devotee and non devotee, pious and sinful, literate and illiterate, demigod and Supreme Lord, chaste and unchaste, dharma and adharma, light and darkness, constitutional and conditional, bhakti and abhakti be homologous?

Everything seems alright to those unmindful of the tidings of the internal reality, who cannot enter into its highly subtle understandings. An ignorant boy may claim that his illegible script has meaning because that of an intelligent person has meaning; and one who does not regard scrawl and meaningful writing as equal will be accused of sectarianism or partiality by the foolish. If we appeal to popularists who have no comprehension of Hari, Hari-Katha, satya-siddhanta, they will say that to promote genuine siddhanta is sectarian and to refute asat-siddhanta is blasphemy. They think, "When we know nothing, better to cook the accounts by calling everything equal. In this way everyone will be stay satisfied and there will be no mutual bad feelings. But truth and falsehood, devotion and nondevotion, can never be one. Persons devoid of devotional sentiment, who feel no necessity to serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who do not want actual benefit, who consider sensual enjoyment and fame desirable, will adjudge contaminated and pure as one.

I offer my respectful obeisances unto Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Prabhupada on his auspicious day of disappearance and request his blessings so I can preach like him without compromise.

As the years go by in this movement we are sometimes surprised at how devotees can again become entangled in material things and sometimes it is an excessive type of behaviour that we thought:

“No, I could never have imagined that this could happen to a devotee”.

Especially if you are in management, it’s like being with the cops….you are always there with the dead body, or something like that. That is the job of the police. So being in management is the same thing – the post mortem:

“All right here we are again looking at all the horrible details of what went wrong”.

So yes, that is also part of the Hare Krishna Movement – let’s face reality…it is not just all a beautiful story:

“We joined the Hare Krishna Movement and we all became saints! Sometimes we struggled a little, since we didn’t have so much desire to chant all our rounds….and sometimes someone made a little offense by speaking harshly to another vaisnava, and later asked for forgiveness”.

It goes a little more raw then that! The lower nature really comes out. What can we say? Psychologist speak about the ‘inner child’. I’m often in Germany these days and there on the shelf I saw a book in the bookstore, speaking about the ‘inner swine mode’, or the best way you could translate that is the ‘inner out dog’ or something like that. Although, it is not as good as ‘swine mode’, there is nothing better than to describe a particular creature that lives inside the ‘inner swine mode’. ‘Hog dog’ if you translate it, literally the ‘inner hog dog’. Well we know him, and he is there pushing and ready for the action anytime. We are not bothered. The moment we think that:

“Now, I’m beyond”.

Danger zone…..danger zone! One must remain on guard and think:

“I have this inside of me, but it doesn’t make sense – it will not benefit me in anyway if I go for that!”

Our handle….our control on that particular weak side of us (that very weak side of us) is first of all a regulation – a regulated program. Second of all, a philosophical understanding which means that we can look beyond the here and now and see what the consequences are in the long term. We must see if we learn to think about the consequences of the actions in the long term, then we are more protected.

Therefore we do not want a movement where everyone is on automatic pilot:

“Well, you know I just joined the Hare Krishna Movement and it’s okay. We just sort of do what we are told….and there is a program which is sacred. Just book onto the morning program, and if you just do that then everything is ok”.

So although, I just glorified discipline and regulation, which I guess includes the morning program. Now, I’m moving along and I am going to show the shortcoming of the faithful follower of the morning program, which is not good enough at all and still in the high risk zone.

If we don’t think then we are an endangered species. We have to think of the consequences of our actions, that is what the Bhagavatam is calling for. The Bhagavatam is not at all a sweet book, it has sweet sides to it……very sweet…..describing the sweetness of Krishna’s glories and pastimes and that is there, but if we think that the Bhagavatam is just the sweet inspirational book, then we are certainly missing the point because it is a heavy book as well. The Bhagavatam is showing us the heaviness of the material nature, and how it holds us in our grips. The Bhagavatam is asking us to actually think of the consequences of things. Therefore the Bhagavatam is there, to wake us up and kick start a process. A process of where we begin to practise questioning:

“What is going to be the result of my actions of what I am doing now?”

"Everyone begins his devotional life from the neophyte stage, but if one properly finishes chanting the prescribed number of rounds of hari-nama, he is elevated step by step to the highest platform, uttama-adhikare."

The shortcomings of one’s intellect and the need for transcendental help are discussed by Thomas Merton in the following quote:

“I think that if there is one truth that people need to learn, in the world, it is this: the intellect is only theoretically independent of desire and appetite in ordinary, actual practice. It is constantly being blinded and perverted by the ends and aims of passion, and the evidence it presents to us with such a show of impartiality and objectivity is fraught with interest and propaganda. We have become marvelous at self-delusion; all the more so, because we have gone to such trouble to convince ourselves of our own absolute infallibility. The desires of the flesh – and by that I mean not only sinful desires, but even the ordinary, normal appetites for comfort and ease and human respect, are fruitful sources of every kind of error and misjudgment, and because we have these yearnings in us, our intellects present to us everything distorted and accommodated to the norms of our desire.

And therefore, even when we are acting with the best of intentions, and imagine that we are doing great good, we may be actually doing tremendous material harm and contradicting all our good intentions. There are ways that seem to men to be good, the end whereof is in the depths of hell.

THE FOLLOWING LECTURE ON SRIMAD-BHAGAVATAM, CANTO 3, CHAPTER1, QUESTIONS BY VIDURA, TEXT 4, WAS GIVEN BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CARU SWAMI ON 17 MARCH 2008 IN ISKCON UJJAIN, INDIA. Click on the pictures to discover the Treasure House Of India’s Spiritual Wisdom as presented by ISKCON Founder Acharya A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada. Transcription : [...]

This coming February marks the auspicious 9th Anniversary of Vrinda Kunda Temple opening! To celebrate we are organizing special parikramas to the Holy Places of Braja, culminating with our famous Kalash Yatra, an ecstatic Sankirtan procession with the ladies carrying water pots with coconuts on their heads

"I offer my obeisances to the cow, in whose body Laksmi resides. I offer my respects to the beautiful cow, for she is pure, simple, and aromatic. I bow down before the cow, who is the daughter of Brahma. She is pure internally and externally and she keeps the whole atmosphere pure by her presence. I repeatedly offer my obeisances unto her."

After a three hours long drive on an unusually bumpy road we reached the prison to meet Mr S. P Yadav - the superintendent of the Jail. He is a very good devotee of Krishna, regularly chanting Hare Krishna Mahamantra and reading Srila Prabhupada's books. He warmly welcomed the devotees and offered fruit prasadam, before we commenced the program

Krishna Priya Dasi: The Vaisnava Writers Community (writers.bbt.info) is looking for a web designer. If you would like to build your design portfolio, support a devotional arts initiative, and receive an honorarium for your endeavors, then please send a portfolio to Krishna Priya Dasi at priya108@gmail.com. Thank you

Twice a week, as part of our outreach of Hindu culture from our monastery in the East Village, myself and a few other monks teach classes on the art of vegetarian cuisine at Columbia University and New York University. We also try to share some of the essential tenets of the vegetarian/vegan life from some of the great traditional sources of the Vedas, such as the Bhagavad-Gita. We mix in with this knowledge a wide breath of moral, economic, and environmental reasons to support the vegetarian/vegan ideal

We do this with an eye to perhaps convince our friends to try to experience the values and benefits of a vegetarian diet, and for those already on the path, to show them the depth of their commitment and the potential for real change that comes by not eating our fair animal comrades.

My own journey into vegetarianism began with a lot of doubt and a little help from my friends. I was once of those students receiving delicious Indian vegetarian fare from Hindu monks at the University of Michigan, but having come from a different culinary background, the food they offered simply bewildered me. Over time, my monk friends won me over to their heartfelt offerings as they explained more of the culture behind it, and I also just came to realize the food was really, really good.

As I began to explore a commitment to vegetarianism, I had the good fortune of being surrounded by friends who were already engaged as vegetarians and vegans. I was also in a progressive college community where there were plenty of restaurants and groceries which catered to the vegetarian lifestyle. As I moved on into the lifestyle of a Hindu monk, I started to learn how to cook, which helped me to further appreciate the colorful, savoury, and rich depth of the vegetarian cuisine of India and of the rest of the world.

So it is with an immense sense of gratitude from my own end that I now am able to return the favor to all those who guided me towards the vegetarian ideal, by teaching its art and depth of knowledge to some of Manhattan's brightest. At the foundation of our presentation is a unique understanding of the value of ahimsa, or non-violence, as presented in the Gita. Going beyond the foundation of not causing any physical, mental, or psychological harm to any living creature, the deeper understanding of ahimsa lies in the understanding of the progressive, enlightened transmigration of the soul through the process of reincarnation.

The Vedas describe a progressive evolution of the soul through different microbial, plant, and animal forms to the human form of life, which is considered an ideal body for spiritual realization. The soul naturally progresses, by instinct and divine guidance, through increasingly complex forms of life before coming to the human stage. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in his translation of the Gita, explains what happens when that progression is stopped by acts of violence:

"Real ahiḿsā means not checking anyone's progressive life. The animals are also making progress in their evolutionary life by transmigrating from one category of animal life to another. If a particular animal is killed, then his progress is checked. If an animal is staying in a particular body for so many days or so many years and is untimely killed, then he has to come back again in that form of life to complete the remaining days in order to be promoted to another species of life. So their progress should not be checked simply to satisfy one's palate. This is called ahiḿsā."

By living a vegetarian lifestyle, we not only refrain from harming our animal friends physically, but also spiritually. Naturally the question arises about plant life, and the potential harm that might be caused to them for the needs of our own body. Of course, we know that some fruits and vegetables fall right from the plant or tree, causing no harm in and of itself. For the other forms of plant life who do give their life for our sustenance, the Hindu tradition tells us that we should prepare and cook these gifts as an offering to God in love and devotion. If done in this mood, God blesses the offering, insuring that the fruits, grains, and vegetables used in the offering continue their spiritual progression.

With our cooking classes, our hope is that our friends there can understand that our offering of vegetarian food has benefits that go beyond the taste buds. We know that the way to a person's heart is through their stomach, and hopefully we can also help them understand that the way to knowledge and respect of the soul also comes through the food that they eat.

Chris Fici is a writer/teacher/monk in the bhakti-yoga tradition. He has been practicing at the Bhaktivedanta Ashram at the Bhakti Center in New York City since 2009. After receiving a degree in film studies at the University of Michigan, Chris began his exploration and study of the bhakti tradition. He currently teaches classes on the culture and art of vegetarian cooking, as well as the living philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, at New York University and Columbia University.

A daily broadcast of the Ultimate Self Realization Course Sunday 11 December 2011 The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krishna, and His eternal consort, Srimati Radharani are enjoying transcendental pastimes in the topmost planet of the spiritual world, Sri Goloka Vrindavan. They are beckoning us to rejoin them. (Click on photo to see a larger image.) Our Mission: To help everyone awaken their original Krishna consciousness, which is eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. Such a global awakening will, in one stroke, solve all the problems of the world society bringing in a new era of unprecedented peace and prosperity for all. May that day, which the world so desperately needs, come very soon. We request you to participate in this mission by reviving your dormant Krishna consciousness and assisting us in spreading this science all over the world. Dedicated with love to ISKCON Founder-Acharya: His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, our beloved spiritual master, and to you, our dear readers. For Transcendental Association Connect With Other Members of this Course. Join this Conference: http://groups.google.com/group/sda_students Help Popularize Our Message By Liking Today's Thought on Facebook: Today's Thought: Planet in Peril Even in Mauritius uploaded from Mauritius When we experience drought even in a paradisial tropical island like Mauritius we can understand that the planet earth is becoming more and more in a perilous position. What good will all of our scientific technological advancement do if we don't even have rain? Without water we will also have no food. It's not that we can survive on computer chips and high speed internet connections. If we want to solve this problem we must know the root cause of water shortage. The modern day scientists say the cause is global warming. But while this may be a symptom of the problem, it is not the cause of the problem. The basic problem is an increase in sinfulness and the absence of the performance of sacrifice. We understand from the Bhagavad-gita that rain comes as a result of the performance of yajna or sacrifice. We also know from the revealed scriptures that the prescribed sacrifice for this age is the performance of the sankirtana yajna, the congregational chanting of the holy names of God. So if we want to solve the world's water shortage problem, all we have to do is regularly perform sankirtana yajna, the congregational chanting of the holy names of God in every town, village, and hamlet all over the world. This alone will solve the drought problem and all the world's problems. But the world's leaders are not taking this advice. Therefore they need to either wise up or step down to be replaced by a new set of enlightened world leaders who know the Absolute Truth and live the Absolute Truth. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Even Heavenly Mauritius... http://www.backtohome.com/images/2011-Fall/mauritius.jpg Has Depleted Water Reservoirs http://www.backtohome.com/images/2011-Fall/Mauritius.drought.jpg Answers by Citing the Vedic Version: Question: Is Destiny Predecided? Is destiny already predecided when we take the birth, or do we have the capacity to alter our destiny? And also, is destiny totally dependent on the past life karma or present life karma? Some people also say that man is the captain of his own ship. Trying to be the servant of the servant of lord. Thanks and regards, Ravi K. Answer: Materially It Is, But Spiritually It Is Not. Materially our destiny is already predetermined and cannot be changed. Therefore anyone who remains in material consciousness has no choice but to be a slave of karma. If one is not satisfied with this position, he can break free from the slavery of karma chakra and become the master of his destiny by taking seriously to the pathway of spiritual awakening, Krishna consciousness. Everyone has this free choice at every minute. Therefore everyone is the architect of his own destiny. But if he casts his fate to wind by becoming the servant of his senses instead of God, he must suffer the karmic reactions birth after birth, whether he likes them or not. Sankarshan Das Adhikari Transcendental Resources: Receive the Special Blessings of Krishna Now you too can render the greatest service to the suffering humanity and attract the all-auspicious blessings of Lord Sri Krishna upon yourself and your family by assisting our mission. Lectures and Kirtans in Audio and Video: Link to High Definition Videos Link to Over 1,000 Lecture Audios Lecture-Travel Schedule for 2011 http://www.ultimateselfrealization.com/schedule Have Questions or Need Further Guidance? 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